ISFP: Groot, “Guardians of the Galaxy”

ISFP, the Composer, the Seeker, the Virtuoso

Like Gamora, Groot doesn’t give us a lot of insight into what’s going on inside his head. I bounced back-and-forth between ISFP and INFP until I finally settled on the former, and I could still be wrong. He’s my favorite character, so I don’t know if I wanted him to be an INFP just because I am (hi, I’m an INFP!), or if he’s my favorite character because he really is an INFP.

Kind of a chicken-and-the-egg thing. Or acorn-and-the-tree.

Anyway, I think the evidence points to him being a Sensor over an Intuitive, so let’s all be Groot for a moment, shall we?

Dominant Function: Introverted Feeling (Fi), “Evaluate the Experience”

Groot lives in his own happy, contented place. He’s very rarely bothered by any of the activity around him. He fights for his friends because they’re important to him, but most of the time, he’s doing his own thing, enjoying the world on his own terms.

Groot’s not very talkative, either. He has one phrase that he uses for every response, and only those who know him well understand what he means. It also speaks to his strong sense of individual identity that the only words he chooses to use are those that express who he is.

He can bust out the rage when it’s time to fight, but he’s also very tender towards others. He uses his powers to heal Drax after his fight with Ronan and to produce light to guide his friends through Ronan’s ship. In the end, Groot finds his friends important enough to sacrifice himself for.

Auxiliary Function: Extraverted Sensing (Se), “Experience the Experience”

Groot is quite literally a force of nature. He can be tender and fierce from one moment to the next. He’s adaptable and can change his form to suit the needs of the current situation, whether to fight his enemies or heal his friends. He goes with the moment, one day fighting Gamora and the next day fighting alongside her.

Groot enjoys small, delightful sensory experiences, whether it’s sticking his head in a fountain or giving a flower to a little girl—or being distracted by chewing on leaves growing out of his arm.

Guardians of the Galaxy MBTI

I’m trying to save money to move to LA, but I couldn’t stop myself from buying Guardians of the Galaxy on DVD as soon as it was released. I’ve watched it a jillion times (approximately), partly because it’s fun, and partly because I wanted to get a handle on the characters so I could write MBTI profiles on them.

Oh, and hey, it’s written and directed by fellow St. Louisan James Gunn, so there’s that.

This video at Cracked.com compares all the Guardians of the Galaxy characters (except for Groot) to Han Solo—lone wolves, tough and clever and out for adventure and personal gain. It makes a good point, but if every character in the movie were literally the same personality type, I think we’d get a pretty boring story—and a dull ensemble.

One of the things that makes MBTI useful for writers (or, for me anyway) is making sure all our characters have unique voices. It’s too easy to make them all mouthpieces for the author, or to get caught up in clichés like the lone wolf, and end up making them all talk and walk and think alike.

Han Solo himself is probably an ISTP, and a pretty classic example of the type. The Guardians are mostly all Perceivers, too, but there’s still lots of diversity in there to work with. They’re mostly Extraverts, for one thing, and mostly Intuitives. Like Han Solo, they’re mostly Thinkers, except for one Feeler exception (I’ll let you take a wild guess who that is, and what he might say to that guess).

So crank up your Walkman and take a look with me.